Adobe Flex resources: Site: Flex.org Blog: Onflex.org
FLEX developer Conference coming in NYC in August
To consider: Flex vs Avalon vs AJAX. My gut reaction as a non-developer is that it’s too early to commit. Better to see which standards and tools shake out as the best.
I’m at the Adobe FLEX presentation at Mashup U here in Mountain View. He’s talking alot about Flash, I think to make the case that FLEX adoption will be rapid and deep, which I assume is what most developers want to see to justify the learning time.
Thanks to Microsoft sponsoring a free espresso cart I’m already…. awake and alert.
The intro referenced John Musser’s excellent resource Programmable Web which is the best Mashup information site online.
I count only about 50 people here at the university, though they expect about 350 at the main event Wednesday and Thursday.
Dave from Toronto told me that they’ve got an active “Demo Camp” going up there that meets monthly, with about 100 people. They showcase projects and network. I’m beginning to think that these “camp” events are the future of how computer people stay informed and connected.
Seems like a double life these days. At 1pm today I was home in Oregon painting our house, and now I’m in Mountain View, CA where the 2 day first of all time “Mashup University” begins tomorrow at the Computer Science Museum. Mashup U is followed on Wednesday and Thursday by Mashup Camp 2, the sequel to Mashup Camp back in February. Doug Gold, David Berlind, and supporters did a fantastic job in February and I’m sure this one will also be a great event.
Hats off *again* to Hotwire.com. I just booked the Homestead Mountain View, a great little studio suite with kitchen, for $47 per night, about half the rack rate. An extra 4.99 got me broadband wireless – for my entire 4 day stay! Sure beats the 10.00+ per day often charged by the fancy hotels.
Hats off to Hotwire.com where I just booked my BWI rental car for more than half off the rate quoted moments later at Hertz. 8 days for $200 vs $406 at Hertz.com. Note that at Hotwire I did not get to choose my car company – I just specified my dates and car type. But who cares about the company? I’ve rented from most of them and had similar and mostly positive experiences.
The 200 is a fantastic rate. I’ve been looking for a few weeks, mostly using Kayak, and have seen mostly prices in the $300 range. I think the lowest I found at Kayak was 276 and today it’s about 300, so Hotwire really came through for me.
The moral of this story was “if at first you don’t get cheap, try, try again”
Vonage, Dollar, and Phoenix Online University top the list of the top 100 May online advertisers who spent a whopping $245 Million for online advertising. I’m not clear how this compares to the online ad spend total as this leaves out the mom and pops who buy a lot of adwords on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
You don’t need a degree from Phoenix Online U to say “Wow, that’s real money dudes!”.
I have an aging Inspiron 5100. With extra memory it’s been an “OK” laptop but it’s always run very, very hot – often this appeared to slow performance significantly until I found a forum where some onliners had figured out – with little help from Dell – that dust accumulation and bad ventilation was the main problem.
Elevating the back of the laptop and blowing out dust seemed to solve that problem. However it’s always been too hot to sit on my lap for long, and the adapter too hot to touch – almost dangerously hot. Neither battery or adapter were on the recall lists for similar products so I can’t imagine how hot the bad parts get!
To Dell’s credit they just replaced my power adapter at no charge, but the new one heats up too.
Maybe it’s time for a new computer.
Today CNN’s online video headlines:
True, they did include some info about the Korean Missile launches and Israel’s attack on Gaza, but as usual left out the tolls from global catastrophes like malaria and HIV.
Is it presumptuous of me to suggest that American news is becoming a mental garbage dump? Ironic that it’s us and not the networks that are to blame. Networks just put out stories that attract our attention, and for the most part those stories are not reasonably interpreted as news.
I love the USA, and not in that silly way many detractors talk about as in “I really love my country except that it’s a 200+ year imperial empire run by madmen hell bent on destroying liberty and freedom”.
I really think the founders launched what will be viewed for thousands of years as a fundamentally good and sound experiment in self management, freedom and economics.
However, I’m confident that the architects of our experiment would be troubled by many aspects of our modern manifestation of their bold experiment.
Here’s my presumptuous very quick take on how they’d view things on this July 4, 230 years after they started it all:
* Government: Far too large in scope and influence over citizens.
* Globalization: They’d love it. They saw it coming and would be pleased the USA is leading the way.
* Taxes: Far too high, though I think they’d like progressive taxation.
* Military Spending: Far too high and inefficient. They’d have wanted infrastructure and recognized that a global military presence is far more stabilizing when it’s backed up with much more diplomacy than we’ve seen in years.
* War on Terror: They would see us as creating far too much expense and international ill-will in our efforts to bring our democratic and economic sensibilities to the rest of the world.
* U.N. They would approve of the concept of an international body, but shudder at the bureaucracy and cost.
* Religion. They’d be alarmed at how much politics and religion mix and simply amazed how some 230 years later, religious intolerance all over the globe fuels so many conflicts and divides the USA on many issues.
Politics: They would note that in some ways election processes have not changed all that much, but would be alarmed by the influence of money and media. They’d be floored by the lack of citizen participation but would understand this is largely a function of the massive, bureaucratic government.
* Technology: They’d be thrilled with too many devices to mention, but it’s probably fair to say that Space Flight would be the most amazing thing to them. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to Benjamin Franklin that today’s Space Shuttle launch.
Wired Magazine has named their top 40 “wired” companies. The selection sounded a bit vague and trendy to me but lists are fun. Wired says this is how they picked them:
We start by looking for the basics: strategic vision, global reach, killer technology. But that’s not enough. To land a spot on our annual Wired 40 list, a business also needs the X-factor – a hunger for new ideas and an impatience to put them into practice.
Notable points: Google at top of list, Apple second. Yahoo at number 5, the “McDonald’s of Cyberspace” (!?), Microsoft 36th.
When he’s asked to do it, Jeremy Z is very good at cutting through the technobabble and getting to mission critical ideas about how programs can be put to work for people.
Here’s a nice summary of his “bitch session” at GnomeDex where it appears they had some great ideas about social networks.
Looks to me like a lot of these apply to many types of tech development.
Joe Duck 